I’m an avid crochetter. I love to crochet. I tend to not be able to just sit and watch a movie or TV show without my mind wandering. This got really bad during the 2020 lockdown and while I was doing university classes online. My mind was very preoccupied with anxious thoughts. I learned to knit when I was a kid, before I ever knew about crochet, so I tried going back to knitting, but knitting was always quite difficult for me. I struggled learning stitches, and my fingers and wrists would quickly get stiff and sore. I can’t remember exactly why or how I decided to try and crochet, just that I found my Oma’s old crochet hooks and I decided to try it.

Image has a crochetted cardigan, sweater vest and shawl displayed
3 of the things I have crochetted.

Crochet didn’t hurt my hands the way knitting did, especially once I got crochet hooks with good grips on them. Very quickly, I was finding projects I wanted to make. I started making clothes for myself and my family by crochetting. In my first practicum, I found that my love of crochet was something that helped me build a relationship with students. They found it very interesting that I made myself sweaters and skirts, and a few also crochetted and would talk about it with me in free moments.

During my first practicum, I brought in an activity that used beads and string. I used to use string and tie it in knots to make bracelets, like many young kids do. During this lesson, I saw students really enjoy the activity. The activity was about coding, and while it did help students understand coding, it was also a nice wellness activity, with students telling me how relaxing it was. It made me think about how yarn works might fit into a classroom. Things like loom knitting, regular knitting, crochet, macrame or tapestry crochet could be activities for art or SEL for students. I’m sure there are others, since we learned and I passed on beaded tweets, which involved coding from the ADST and Math curriculum in grade 6/7. I think things like this could be complicated, but might be nice projects or learning activities for students. Yarn can also be twisted, tied and cut to make things. One example is yarn flowers, something I saw someone do for a Mother’s Day gift, which involves only yarn, tying knots and cutting yarn like you do to make pom-poms for the flowers.

I think that yarn works is something I can bring into lessons, and something that could be a club. If students enjoyed working with yarn, as I saw at the school I was at for my first practicum, maybe it could be club where students could learn to crochet or knit and learn how to make things, such as amigurumi (knitting or crochetting stuffed yarn animals), clothing and blankets. Yarn works can be nice for people who want to make their own clothing or things in their homes, it can be used to re-use yarn or even other clothing (people cut up clothes that are getting work or torn and crochet or knit them into something new) and can be very healing and calming.